Sight of Sound: Designing for the Senses

<p>It has been agreed that one of Interior Architecture’s primary roles is to create atmosphere. This is generally achieved by engaging the senses in specific spatial conditions that shift the emotions and create moods. This view of interior is more particularly relevant to the needs of inhabitants/ users with sensory impairment. The intention within this thesis is for individuals with hearing and sight impairment to experience space/ interiors, with at least the same, wholeness as those with the capacity of full range of sense. Pallasmaa states that “it is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all of the senses simultaneously” (Pallasmaa (C) 11). It has been suggested that if a sense is taken away there is a higher importance placed on the remaining senses. Early research has indicated that people, specifically children with sight impairment “perceive the built environment very differently and pay more attention to tactile, haptic, auditory and olfactory aspects” compared to a person with full sensory abilities (Vermeersch et al. 1). Engagement with all possible senses allows a connection with space and orientation within architecture. It is this engagement with surroundings which “is a key component of happiness” (Fox, “Emotion Science”). This helps to achieve the independence that is desired among the sensory impaired. “A dialogue between architects and people with visual impairment can therefore contribute to a more multi-sensory design approach to architecture” (Vermeersch et al. 1). While specific senses engage with mood to stimulate a learning experience for those with hearing and sight impairment, this design research demonstrates how the play of light and water can be used as a tool in creating specific atmospheres. These in turn influence moods in creation of interiors for multisensory experience. Henry Plummer’s light categories are the basis for which this research invents categories of sound. It is also proposed as a tool for interior designers to think about space for people with sensory impairment and to design with specific guidance. This invention will be tested by applying a program, Gallery of the Senses, to a Wellington site.</p>

Sight of Sound: Designing for the Senses

<p>It has been agreed that one of Interior Architecture’s primary roles is to create atmosphere. This is generally achieved by engaging the senses in specific spatial conditions that shift the emotions and create moods. This view of interior is more particularly relevant to the needs of inhabitants/ users with sensory impairment. The intention within this thesis is for individuals with hearing and sight impairment to experience space/ interiors, with at least the same, wholeness as those with the capacity of full range of sense. Pallasmaa states that “it is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all of the senses simultaneously” (Pallasmaa (C) 11). It has been suggested that if a sense is taken away there is a higher importance placed on the remaining senses. Early research has indicated that people, specifically children with sight impairment “perceive the built environment very differently and pay more attention to tactile, haptic, auditory and olfactory aspects” compared to a person with full sensory abilities (Vermeersch et al. 1). Engagement with all possible senses allows a connection with space and orientation within architecture. It is this engagement with surroundings which “is a key component of happiness” (Fox, “Emotion Science”). This helps to achieve the independence that is desired among the sensory impaired. “A dialogue between architects and people with visual impairment can therefore contribute to a more multi-sensory design approach to architecture” (Vermeersch et al. 1). While specific senses engage with mood to stimulate a learning experience for those with hearing and sight impairment, this design research demonstrates how the play of light and water can be used as a tool in creating specific atmospheres. These in turn influence moods in creation of interiors for multisensory experience. Henry Plummer’s light categories are the basis for which this research invents categories of sound. It is also proposed as a tool for interior designers to think about space for people with sensory impairment and to design with specific guidance. This invention will be tested by applying a program, Gallery of the Senses, to a Wellington site.</p>

Distinct neural mechanisms support different forms of inner speech

Humans have the ability to mentally examine speech. This covert form of speech production is often accompanied by sensory (e.g., auditory) percepts. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms that generate these percepts are still debated. According to a prominent proposal, inner speech has at least two distinct phenomenological components: inner speaking and inner hearing. Here we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to test whether these two phenomenologically distinct processes are supported by distinct cerebral mechanisms. We hypothesise that inner speaking relies more strongly on an online motor-to-sensory simulation that constructs a multisensory experience, whereas inner hearing relies more strongly on a memory-retrieval process, where the multisensory experience is reconstructed from stored motor-to-sensory associations. We predict that the speech motor system will be involved more strongly during inner speaking than inner hearing. This will be revealed by modulations of TMS evoked responses at muscle level following cortical stimulation of the lip primary motor cortex.

The role of motor inhibition during covert speech production

Covert speech is accompanied by a subjective multisensory experience with auditory and kinaesthetic components. An influential hypothesis states that these sensory percepts result from a simulation of the corresponding motor action that relies on the same internal models recruited for the control of overt speech. This simulationnist view raises the question of how it is possible to imagine speech without executing it. In this perspective, we discuss the possible role(s) played by motor inhibition during covert speech production. We suggest that considering covert speech as an inhibited form of overt speech maps naturally to the purported progressive internalisation of overt speech during childhood. However, we argue that the role of motor inhibition may differ widely across different forms of covert speech (e.g., condensed vs. expanded covert speech) and that considering this variety helps reconciling seemingly contradictory findings from the neuroimaging literature.

Tracing multisensory food experiences on Twitter

How a food, or a dish, is named and how its components and attributes are described can all influence the perception and the enjoyment of the food. Therefore, tracing patterns in food descriptions and determining their role can be of value. The aims of this study were the following: (1) to describe the multisensory food experience as represented in microblog entries concerning food and drink on Twitter, (2) to provide an overview of the changes in the above-mentioned food representations during the period 2011–20, and (3) to contribute to a broader understanding of the human–food relationship as reflected on social media – in this case Twitter – and outline its potential utility for the research field of gastrophysics. The combinations of various multisensory attributes co-occurring in a tweet (which we term ‘collocations’) found in the Twitter corpus were examined through the categories of texture, colour, taste, smell/odour, shape and sound. We mapped the collocations of the 20–25 most frequently mentioned food items and their multisensory experience pairings over time. Such time-based knowledge led to a better understanding of the multisensory experience triggers as reflected on Twitter. By analysing the multisensory experience’s frequency of occurrence, we could conclude that the category of colour is the dominant one, while textural, olfactory and auditory collocations with food are rare. In most of the cases, food tweets appear to render a food experience ‘tasty’, ‘good’ and ‘interesting’.

Scenting Entertainment: Virtual Reality Storytelling, Theme Park Rides, Gambling, and Video-Gaming

There has long been interest in both the tonic and phasic release of scent across a wide range of entertainment settings. While the presentation of semantically congruent scent has often been used in order to enhance people’s immersion in a particular context, other generally less successful attempts have involved the pulsed presentation of a range of scents tied to specific events/scenes. Scents have even been released in the context of the casino to encourage the guests to linger for longer (and spend more), at least according to the results of one controversial study. In this narrative review, I want to take a closer look at the use of scent in a range of both physical and digital environments, highlighting the successes (as in the case of scented theme park rides) and frequent failures (as, seemingly, in the context of scent-enabled video games). While digitally inducing meaningful olfactory sensations is likely to remain a pipe dream for the foreseeable future, the digital control of scent release/delivery provides some limited opportunities to enhance the multisensory experience of entertainment. That said, it remains uncertain whether the general public will necessarily perceive the benefit, and hence be willing to pay for the privilege.

Speech-Breath: Mapping the Multisensory Experience in Pecos River Style Pictography

Archaic period hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created complex rock art murals containing elaborately painted anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures. These figures are frequently portrayed with dots or lines emanating out of or into their open mouths. In this article, we discuss patterns in shape, color, and arrangement of this pictographic element and propose that artists used this graphic device to denote speech, breath, and the soul. They communicated meaning through the image-making process, alternating brushstroke direction to indicate inhalation versus exhalation or using different paint application techniques to reflect measured versus forceful speech. The choices made by artists in the production of the imagery reflect their cosmology and the framework of ideas and beliefs through which they interpreted and interacted with the world. Bridging the iconographic data with ethnohistoric and ethnographic texts from Mesoamerica, we suggest that speech and breath expressed in the rock art of the Lower Pecos was tied to concepts of the soul, creation, and human origins.